Understanding Virtual Team Performance: A Synthesis of Research on the Effects of Team Design, Emerg

Virtual teams are essential to the functioning of numerous organizations. They are the subjects of much research, resulting in a growing body of literature on the topic. Nevertheless, our understanding of what types of factors (e.g., people, task, and technology), drive performance in virtual teams and the processes through which they do, remain relatively limited. We review and synthesize the extant empirical research on virtual teams in order to provide insights into the direct and indirect antecedents of virtual team performance. Drawing on existing models of differentiated performance and emergent processes and states that have been applied to traditional teams, we review ninety-seven empirical studies of virtual teams published between 1990 and 2008. We use the results of a vote-counting analysis to develop an integrative model of the direct and indirect drivers of virtual team performance. Based on this model, we highlight key gaps in both our knowledge of, and approach to studying, virtual team dynamics and performance. Using this model, we outline areas for future research, provide managerial recommendations, and highlight implications for the study of both virtual and traditional teams.

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